Strikes to continue while ‘bandits’ remain in Aleppo: Lavrov

Hamburg (AFP) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Syria’s Aleppo will continue to be bombed by the Moscow-backed regime as long as rebels remain in the devastated city.

“After a humanitarian pause, (the strikes) have resumed and will continue for as long as the bandits are still in Aleppo,” Lavrov told journalists at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

A day earlier at the foreign ministers’ meeting in Hamburg, Germany, Lavrov had told Russian journalists that the Syrian army had halted fighting in eastern Aleppo amid an operation to evacuate civilians.

Asked about the comment Friday, as Aleppo was again under heavy bombardment, Lavrov said: “I did not say that the military operations were completely stopped, I said they were suspended for a certain time to allow civilians wishing to leave to do so. 

“Everyone understands it, our American partners understand it.”

Russia’s top diplomat voiced hope that all sides could soon reach a truce agreement for Aleppo, as the United States and Russia plan an expert-level meeting in Geneva Saturday.

But Lavrov also accused the American side of “strange” behaviour for allegedly flip-flopping on their own proposal which involved allowing rebels to leave Aleppo if they first give up their heavy weapons.

“If the American experts do not change their mind again as they did a few days ago… then there is a good chance for an agreement on a final settlement of the situation in Aleppo,” said Lavrov.

Under the plan being considered, he said, both the disarmed fighters and civilians could leave the devastated city through corridors to either the city of Idlib or to the Turkish border.

But he also said that, on the US side, “while the left hand is doing something constructive, the right hand opens the floodgates of arms deliveries to the fighters”.

He said this would be pointless “because the bandits are surrounded and they are unlikely to get reinforcements”, while the arms instead “may end up in the hands of the terrorists of the Islamic State or al-Nusra”.